Subordinate Taxa
 Nomenclature
Scientific Name:
Elodea Michx., Fl. Bor.-Amer. [Michaux]1, 20 (1803)
Vernacular Name(s):
Ditchmoss; Pondweed; Waterweed
 Description

Submersed aquatic perennials of fresh water, rooting or drifting; dioecious, occasionally hermaphrodite. Stems simple or sparingly dichotomously branched. Leaves numerous, sessile, margins minutely toothed; lowest leaves opposite, middle and upper leaves whorled. Flowers unisexual and bisexual, solitary, long-exserted on pedicel-like extension of perianth-tube, from tubular sessile axillary spathes; male flowers usually breaking off and floating; female flowers reaching to surface of water; sepals 3, green; petals 3, rarely 0, white to purple. Male flowers with 9 stamens, usually 6 in a lower outer ring and 3 inner raised on a fused filament column; female flowers with 3 staminodia alternating with the 3 entire or bifid stigmas; bisexual flowers with 3 stamens, and pistil as in female. Fruit a capsule. Seeds several.

[From: Healy and Edgar (1980) Flora of New Zealand. Volume 3.]

 Biostatus
Exotic
Number of species in New Zealand within Elodea Michx.
CategoryNumber
Exotic: Fully Naturalised1
Total1
 Bibliography
Mabberley, D.J. 2008: Mabberley's plant book, a portable dictionary of plants, their classification and uses. Edition 3. Cambridge University Press.
Michaux, A. 1803: Flora Boreali-Americana. Vol. 1. Crapelet, Paris.